Participation in the 2020 GRESB Real Estate Benchmark leaps 22%

GRESB, the global environmental, social and governance (ESG) benchmark for real assets, has released the results for the 2020 GRESB Real Estate Assessment. Participation in the 2020 Assessment grew by 22 percent to cover 1,229 portfolios (up from 1,005 in 2019) worth more than $4.8 trillion in assets under management (AUM). Data on key environmental performance indicators was reported at asset-level for more than 96,000 assets, across 64 countries, and aggregated to portfolio-level.

This increase in participation, coming despite the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, shows an industry responding decisively to the accelerating investor demand for comparable ESG data. The private sector led the growth trend, with participation growing 32 percent to cover 953 non-listed portfolios (up from 723 in 2019). On the listed side, 271 REITs and property companies reported to GRESB (up from 240 in 2019), an increase of 13 percent on the previous year.

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